Co-creation Hub, Nigeria’s first innovation centre and technology hub, has selected 12 Nigerian startups for the fourth cohort of the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship, an 18-month accelerator programme built to back early-stage education technology companies developing solutions for learners across the continent.
Each startup will receive up to $100,000 in equity-free funding, paired with structured technical assistance spanning product development, communications and business strategy, according to the company.
This year’s intake sharpens the Fellowship’s focus on some of the hardest-to-reach corners of Africa’s education system: founders building for learners with disabilities, internally displaced persons, underserved and rural communities, girls and young women and the data infrastructure needed to track education and workforce outcomes.
“Cohort 4 was designed around the belief that the most important decisions about inclusion are made at the earliest stages of innovation,” said Nissi Madu, managing partner at CcHUB.
“This cohort represents founders who are building with this understanding at the core of their solutions. Our role is to help them test, refine, and generate evidence for their solutions while building sustainable businesses that can scale their impact.”
The 12 startups are grouped across four thematic focus areas, according to the hub.
TrainDTrainer Ltd, Talktu, DAWN AI STUDY and Efiwe are developing solutions for learners with disabilities.
Ileemore Technologies Limited, Skillup Africa and Lena are expanding access to education in underserved, rural and displacement-affected communities.
Heels and Tech, NursePadi, Skilladder AI and Lalitah are focused on improving participation, skills development and economic opportunities for girls and young women.
Ribara Analytica is building data infrastructure to strengthen education planning and improve pathways from learning to employment.
Beyond funding and technical support, the Fellowship equips founders with media readiness support and stakeholder engagement infrastructure, aimed at raising the visibility of their work among partners, funders and the communities they serve.
“At its best, EdTech does not just digitize education; it redistributes opportunity, and that’s where the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship comes in,” said Wariko Waita, Director of the Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning at the Mastercard Foundation.
“The Fellowship sits at the intersection of three powerful forces, education system transformation, inclusive technology-enabled solutions and sustainability of Africa’s EdTech entrepreneurship.”
The programme’s track record has scaled steadily since its 2019 launch. The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship has now supported 72 companies across Africa, collectively reaching more than 700,000 new learners 89% of them children and young people, according to the Fellowship.
The fourth cohort lands at a moment when African EdTech is under growing pressure to prove not just reach but durability.
Across the continent, education systems face a widening gap between school-age populations and available infrastructure, a gap that has pushed investors and development institutions alike to treat inclusive, tech-enabled learning as core economic policy rather than a peripheral social good.
By funding equity-free and pairing capital with go-to-market support, the Fellowship is betting that African EdTech founders need patient capital and market-readiness as much as they need cash.
